A Fish Out of Water
by Jixie
Summary: The early morning after a hurricane always brought interesting finds. Some more interesting than others. Dr. Cossack finds and rescues a badly injured Forte. Mermaid AU.
1. After the Storm

**A Fish Out of Water**

By jixie

* * *

Note: This is specifically for Sura's MerNavi AU. All you really need to know is _mermaids_. But for more information and some incredible artwork, please check out her tumblr, the account is "s-uranet" and the tag is "MerNavis-AU".

Special thanks to Sura for help, suggestions, and beta reading.

Mega Man Battle Network © Capcom

* * *

He matched the raging storm with his own rage, the force of the current with his own strength.

It was not enough.

No one was more powerful than the sea itself.

He fought as hard as he could, but illness had worn him down long before the typhoon hit. Spent, he found himself swept up in the current, hurled by the violent churn of the waves.

Helpless to stop his life from spiraling out of control, his own frame tossed about and swirling like flotsam, like so much ocean refuse.

There was a burst of light behind his eyes when he collided into something much larger and much heavier, and a pain blossomed in his chest, sharp and

an

an̵d̕҉͠ ͜t͞t̵t̴̢

* * *

ttttt□ □ □ □|

* * *

For a long stretch of time all he knew was an unbearable weight, grinding him into the sand, and intense, unrelenting heat.

Slowly the life was being crushed out of him.

It

It was so hot

It w□ □|

* * *

The early morning after a hurricane always brought interesting finds. Some more interesting than others. Over the years Dr. Cossack had found a lot of beautiful driftwood, a lot of displaced starfish and horseshoe crabs and jellyfish, plenty of ocean garbage. Occasionally part of a small boat motor or propeller. One time, he found a lone shoe, decaying foot still inside.

The crabs and starfish he always tossed back into the ocean. The jellyfish were on their own. The grim shoe he reported to the police.

There weren't many people on the beach, and he was alone when he saw some shapeless form in the distance, and a flicker of movement caught his eye.

Dr. Cossack broke into a jog. It was too small to be a whale, too large for a sea turtle. A beached dolphin, then, or maybe a shark…

He slowed down to a disappointed shuffle as he got closer. A 'none of the above'; a log, the shattered tree trunk stripped of leaves and most branches, the least interesting sort of refuse to wash up on the shore.

…No.

There was something else there, something moving, writhing underneath the log. He approached cautiously.

A mernavi.

A _mernavi?_

Seriously?

It was in terrible shape, too, trapped under the tree trunk, beaten and bashed by the ocean storm. As he looked closer, he realized with a start that the poor thing wasn't just pinned— it had been impaled on a broken branch.

It was then Dr. Cossack noticed that its armor was black, and that the blue sheen he saw was… blood? Did they have blue blood? The stuff was everywhere around it, viscous and tacky as it dried.

He didn't know much about mernavis, really, but he knew about marine life. Hurrying down to the water, he pulled off his shirt and dunked it, running back to wring it out over the injured navi. He repeated the trip twice, and the third time he draped the soaking wet cloth over its upper body.

It woke just enough to snarl at him, snapping dangerous fangs inches from his hand, making an angry, inhuman clicking sound as he backed away.

"Shhh, shhh, it's okay." Well, maybe not… that wound looked like it could be fatal, but he tried to be soothing and reassuring. "Just hang in there. It's going to be okay."

Not only did the navi not understand him, but his voice seemed to have the opposite effect than intended. It hissed and snarled, only to pass out moments later.

Hesitant, Dr. Cossack reached out and placed his hand on the mernavi's chest, careful to avoid the wound. It didn't stir. He tried giving the log a firm shove, but unsurprisingly, it hardly budged. It easily weighed several times more than he did.

It _did_ wake the navi, who swiped at Dr. Cossack's arms, and screamed what surely was obscenities at him.

"Okay! Okay! Shhh… please, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm trying to help."

All he got in response was more hissing and clicking, and an earnest but weak attempt to claw him again.

"I can't move this thing by myself," he continued. "I'm going to get some tools and some help."

Red eyes, glazed over with pain and full of fury and terror, glared at him.

"I'll be right back," he promised, and took several cautious steps backwards, not wanting to startle it with sudden movements, before he turned and ran.

* * *

Mikhail Cossack had never moved so fast in his life.

There were a few things working in his favor:

He wasn't too far from home.

He'd done a good job of preparing the house for the hurricane, and happened to have everything he needed on hand.

He was able to flag down help from a couple on the way back.

"Here," he said, handing a bucket to the young lady. "Please, fill it with sea water and soak these towels."

He draped wet towels over the mernavi's body, earning more scratches for his trouble when he wasn't fast enough to dodge them. She ran and refilled the bucket, and they carefully poured it, watching in horror as the water pooled electric blue with navi blood.

Among other things, he'd brought along a wood beam— leftover scrap from boarding up windows and bracing the garage door. Gesturing, Dr. Cossack directed the young man to wedge it under the log. Together the two of them tried to move it, but instead of lifting the log, the beam sank down into the sand.

"It needs a fulcrum to balance," said the girl.

They scrambled, and ironically ended up flipping over the wheelbarrow to brace the wood beam.

"A lever to make a lever." She laughed, earning a confused look from the guys.

This time, all three worked together, and cheered when the massive tree trunk shifted and rolled to the side. The instant the mernavi was no longer pinned, it started to thrash, struggling to pull itself free from the branch that was buried in its chest.

Dr. Cossack cried out and lunged, without regard for his own safety, grabbing the navi's shoulders and holding it still. Normally humans were no match for the cybernetic creature, but it was dying and so he managed to overpower it.

"Don't move! Leave it in, leave it, you'll bleed out…"

This time it seemed to understand that he was trying to help. Frantic, delirious, and in tremendous pain, it clung to Mikhail, causing just as many cuts and slashes as it would've had it fought him.

Now it was out from under the log, he could get a better look at it. It really was in terrible shape, but something else struck him as odd.

'_Are they usually this small?_' Dr. Cossack wondered.

Returning with another bucket full of sea water, the girl poured it over the both of them, and her boyfriend came closer, hacksaw in hand.

"Don't let that thing bite me, alright buddy?" he said to Dr. Cossack as he eyed the navi.

"Ah, I'll try my best."

It was slipping back into unconsciousness, blinking slowly as it went limp in his arms.

"Hang in there," he muttered. There was no response, and he watched as the young man sawed through the base of the tree branch.

Using one of the wet towels, he did his best to put pressure on the wound and stabilize the branch so it wouldn't work loose. The couple started arguing about what to do next.

"I'm telling ya', babe, they take care of their own. We gotta get this little guy back in the ocean."

"No way, it's too injured, it'll die before any others can find it and help."

"I can take things from here," Dr. Cossack said. "I work at the marine center."

"Ah, well shit! You got it covered then, my man!"

He nodded towards the navi's tail, then gestured at the wheelbarrow. "Help me put it in there."

They went to move it and the navi sprung to life, thrashing and screaming in agony. It managed to brain the young man with its tail, and he let go, grabbing his head and wincing as he stumbled back.

"You okay?" The concerned girlfriend asked.

"Yeah, yeah, gimme a sec." After gathering himself, he stepped forward and they tried again.

This time the navi was too weak to flail, but it cried out pitifully and shuddered and spit up copious amounts of blood.

"Ew."

They got it into the wheelbarrow, curling its tail to fit. Dr. Cossack was right, it _was_ small. The wheel promptly got stuck in the sand, so the three of them took hold of it and lifted, carrying the whole thing up to the paved road. Fortunately, this didn't aggravate the navi's wound the way carrying it by hand had, and when it passed out this time, it stayed unconscious for a while.

"Thank you so much for your help."

"Glad we could do something," the girl replied. "Good luck!"

"Godspeed, little guy!"

Heading back to his house, Dr. Cossack looked down at the mernavi.

He had no idea what he was doing.

This was a mistake.

* * *

Like all good nerdy marine biologists, he owned a large saltwater reef aquarium. This was handy, because it meant he had bags of saline mix, a refractometer to measure it with, and a dedicated R/O water filtration system.

Which he was now using to fill the bathtub.

What was he _doing?_

The initial adrenaline rush was dying down and the panic was setting in.

…and this creature's screams of pain would undoubtedly haunt him to his grave.

He was on the phone as he watched the tub, checking the salinity and pouring in more aquarium salt as needed.

"No, no a _tree branch_. No, it's… it's still in there. Yes, I understand…"

Getting the wheelbarrow up the three steps to the front and inside the door had been a challenge.

He glanced over his shoulder. It didn't fit through the bathroom door, and the mernavi lie there, watching him with half hooded eyes, slipping in and out of consciousness.

With the phone call complete and the tub full enough, Dr. Cossack went and scooped up the navi in his arms, then awkwardly carried it to the tub.

Once in there, it revived a little, and grasped his arms, refusing to let go.

* * *

Sharks.

He loved sharks. As a kid he'd been shark crazy, they decorated his room, his clothes, his backpack and school binder. He could (and did) recite endless facts. Every year he begged his parents to take him to the local aquarium for his birthday, so he could watch them feed the sleek black-tipped reef sharks and lazy lemon and nurse sharks. He loved puppy dog like porbeagles and muppet looking blue sharks and chubby, comically long tailed threshers.

That's what he specialized in: sharks.

Sharks don't pay bills, so what he actually did for a living was study how mackerel seasonal breeding migration affected Euro - Mediterranean commercial fishing operations.

All this to say:

Dr. Cossack had very little interest in mernavis.

There was an assumption that anyone with a degree in marine biology or worked at the local marine center— that was two strikes against him— must love and study mernavis, or work side-by-side with them. In reality, there was a department for them, and they did employ a few, and of course there was a mernavi hospital. But there was also a marine mammal hospital for injured dolphins and seals, and a department for cephalopods, and very few of his colleagues had met their navi coworkers, much less worked with them.

In the end Dr. Cossack knew as much about navis as someone who'd just watched a mediocre documentary about them.

And now…

…and now he was here, in the back of a large converted van, with a small angry navi glued to his side. Whatever the nurse had given it worked, a little too well perhaps. Now no one could get near it without getting bit, save for Mikhail. Not that he was much better off— with one set of razor sharp claws digging into his forearm and the other set digging into his upper arm, his clothes soaked with navi blood.

Getting in and out of the van was nothing short of traumatic, but the ride itself was mercifully uneventful.

At the hospital he tried to extract himself, but stayed when the navi started to freak out, metal plating fluffing out in alarm and making noises about as pleasant as a typewriter being run over by a steamroller. When a nurse got walloped by its tail after trying to give it some fuel, he found himself handfeeding the damn thing the just to get something down into its tanks before surgery. The harder he tried to be on his way, the more entrenched he became.

A bold doctor with quick hands injected the navi with something and finally, Dr. Cossack was free.

* * *

For some reason he stuck around, loitering in the waiting room. A tech took pity on him, disinfected his wounds, bandaged his arms and hands, and found him a fresh pair of scrubs to replace his soaking wet, blood-splattered, completely shredded shirt.

He tried not to be anxious about the fact that one hour stretched into two, then two turned into three…

* * *

"Pardon me? Hello? Dr. Cossack, yes?"

He awoke with a start, wiping a string of drool off his chin with the back of his hand.

"Uh, yes."

Overly cheerful, the petite older doctor grinned at him, running her fingers through her bushy white hair. "Dr. Goodall," she introduced herself. "You're a hero, Dr. Cossack. Not many people would go through the effort that you have to help a mernavi. Usually we get a call along the lines of 'hey, I saw this thing on the beach a couple hours ago, might want to check it out'. You know your stuff, too! A lot of times well meaning people try to help and end up causing more damage." She gave him a quick pat on the shoulder. "You saved this mernavi's life."

"So… so…" He was still pretty dazed. It had been a long, difficult day, and it was barely past noon. He had missed lunch, his stomach sourly reminded him. "Ah, the surgery and everything…?"

"Oh, it went _swimmingly!_" She winked. "Pun intended!"

God, what had he gotten himself into?

Dr. Cossack surprised himself, though, when he asked, "Can I see it?"

"Shore!"

He was a polite man, but it still took everything he had not to roll his eyes. Not only were her jokes corny, she seemed far too chipper and lighthearted for the somber operation waiting room.

Dr. Goodall linked her arm with his arm and started to lead the way. "By the way, the preferred nomenclature for unknown and Diverge-frame type mernavi is 'them', not 'it'."

"Sorry…"

"No problem! You didn't know, now you do. I bet your curious about your new friend. Well, their frame type is Combat, soooo 'congratulations, Dr. Cossack, it's a boy'."

There were so many questions, because among other things he had no idea what she meant by 'frame type', but she didn't pause.

"He's still a small fry, going by start date, he's roughly the equivalent of an eleven year old human child. I mean, it's not exact, but yeah, around that."

A child… How terrible for a child to go through all that pain and trauma.

"And his name's 'Forte'."

"Forte," he repeated.

The mernavi hospital was nothing like a human hospital. There were mostly in-ground pools, with patients kept in large groups. A few medium-sized cylindrical tanks, metal with viewing windows throughout, housed pairs or trios of patients with special needs.

They walked past all of that.

She went on, "As it turns out, the poor kid has got a massive infection that's just completely rampaging throughout his system. It's pretty infectious, too. Unfortunately, that means he's going to have to be quarantined until he's fully recovered."

The isolation ward did look a little more like a traditional hospital, with small individual tanks running on independent filtration systems and environment controls. Plastic lined curtains divided each little area.

Forte was curled up on the tank floor, still out cold from the anesthetic. They'd repaired the internal damage, sealed and patched the open wounds. Dr. Goodall was cheerfully explaining that in time his self-repair functions would heal it completely. Dr. Cossack wasn't really listening.

He watched silently, feeling… something… in the back of his mind.

An ache. An old familiar ache. The daughter shaped hole in his heart.

What had he gotten himself into?

"It's so wonderful that you work right here in the center! It makes things so much easier," the doctor was saying.

He blinked in confusion, having briefly tuned her out. "Sorry? I missed that."

"You know, to visit. Oh! You can come in before your shift, and during lunch break, and spend a little time before heading home…"

Dr. Cossack sputtered. "What? No, I— I just— this wasn't… um…"

He was thinking maybe he could follow up in a week or two, then see the navi off when it— _he_— was released.

Large, pleading eyes met his. "Dr. Cossack, surely you noticed that all our other patients stay in groups. Some of the mernavis' here aren't even patients, they're volunteers. That's because they're _very_ social, as a species. Isolation is tough on them physiologically. A healthy one can hack it, but we're talking about a sick, injured child. Who can't be with his own kind. Who's very clearly taken a shine to you. Who—"

"Okay, okay!"

He groaned, pulling his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose.

Before work, during lunch, before leaving the job… good grief.

* * *

After the doctor left, Mikhail turned and leaned his back against the iso tank and called Kalinka.

"Hey Linky-Lou."

"Pa!"

Her voice always brought a smile to his face.

They spent a good hour talking about nothing in particular. Her favorite subjects in school and how her grades were, the latest pre-teen gossip about her friends old and new— no one had shifting allegiances like little girls, the concert she went to last week, the movies they were looking forward to the most this summer. He let her guide the conversation wherever it took her.

"See you in November!" She said, and he winced. It always felt so far away, like his life was on hold until his daughter could fly in and spend a month or two with him.

"I'll be counting down the days, peanut."

For several long minutes he stood there, still holding the silent phone against his ear, the back of his head resting against the tank, cold and hard.

When he turned back around, Forte was awake and watching him, curious but apprehensive. Dr. Cossack stared back.

Sluggish and halting, he made his way to the front of the tank, not so much swimming as crawling. Then, closing his eyes, Forte leaned his forehead on the window, one hand scratching faintly against the glass.


	2. An Angry Dial Up Modem

When he finally got home, Dr. Cossack dragged the wheelbarrow outside, put it and the hacksaw away in the shed, and went to take a much needed, well earned shower.

He was greeted by a bathtub full of opaque neon blue water.

Thankfully he was already standing next to the toilet. He collapsed to his knees and retched.

* * *

Exhausted, he should have gone to bed early.

Instead, he started talking to the house speaker connected to his personal terminal.

"Alia, queue up documentaries on mernavis."

* * *

The next few days were quiet, the eye of the storm. Forte spent most of his time sleeping or lying on the floor in a daze. The virus made it that much harder for him to recover from his grievous injuries and major surgery.

As promised, Dr. Cossack dropped in three times a day, and was always conflicted. Was it better to let the navi sleep, or should he wake him, if only to let him know he was there?

On day four, he arrived with his lunch tucked under his arm, and was horrified when he heard pained human screams from the isolation ward.

It was a tech. Two others were helping him, applying pressure to a badly bleeding hand.

Mikhail knew even before he reached the tank. Sure enough, there was a pink tinge to the water and Forte wasn't just awake, he had a particular smug look about him.

"You idiot," Dr. Cossack scolded. "These people saved your life. They're trying to help you. You don't bite people who are trying to help you! That's what animals do."

Forte looked at him questioningly, tilting his head to the side. Frankly, it was adorable, and Dr. Cossack had to fight not to smile.

Instead, he frowned dramatically. "NO BITING."

"He doesn't understand English," Dr. Goodall said as she approached. "No language patches downloaded."

"But you could just upgrade it for him, can't you?"

"Yeah, but not without patient consent."

He stared in confusion.

"What's that you're holding, then?"

She laughed and bounced the computer chips in her hand. "Code patches— navi medicine. Think about it this way. You have a heart attack, they run you to the hospital, doctors crack open your ribs and do an emergency bypass. Then you wake up and they say 'by the way, we noticed your knee was a little creaky, so we went ahead and gave you a joint replacement while you were under, and oh yeah we yanked out your tonsils 'cause why the heck not—'"

"Okay, yes, I get it."

She bounced the chips again and looked lost in thought.

"He needs this. I just hate to tranq him when he's in such rough shape."

"Do you want me to… I mean… Maybe he'll accept it from me?"

"Ehhh he still might attack you, so there's a liability issue—"

"I'm employed here at the center," he reminded her.

"True!" The doctor paused, tapping her finger against her chin. "The tank is pretty deep, how's your diving skills?"

Disgusted, Dr. Cossack snatched the computer chips. "I'm a marine biologist. Don't insult me," he said while climbing the ladder up to the top of the tank.

Then he stopped. Dr. Goodall grinned at him.

"Do ya want a wetsuit?"

Grumbling, he clambered back down.

Once he was dressed more appropriately, he went up once again and dove in.

The hospital tanks were kept a little cooler than average pelagic ocean temperatures. He'd done a million dives before, but the cold water was still a bit of a shock. Effortlessly Dr. Cossack swam to the bottom. The sad thing was that it would've been easier for Forte to meet him at the top, but he was too weak to do much more than tread water a few feet above the floor.

The navi watched him, intensely curious and slightly amused.

He held out the code patch chips. Forte eyed him for a moment, then placed a clawed hand over his, holding it briefly before gently taking the chips.

When he hauled himself out of the tank, Dr. Cossack was surprised to hear Dr. Goodall laughing. She was practically in tears.

"What?"

"Hooooo boy! You— ha ha ha— you—! Hah!" She slapped her forehead, shaking with laughter. "Would'jya look at that!"

"What?"

He stepped off the ladder and gave her a stern look as he stood there dripping.

"That mernavi has imprinted on you."

"'Imprinted'? What do you mean?"

"You know, like a baby duck."

He raised an eyebrow. "Beg your pardon?"

"Okay… ducklings, chicks, they don't know they're ducklings right out the egg, so they imprint on their mother… or on the person who hatched them… or on objects like a pair of boots…"

"I'm familiar with the concept."

"Well mernavi fry have their own version of that." She pointed at the tank. "And that guy doesn't just like you, he's looking at you and thinking 'mommy'."

Dr. Cossack burst into laughter. "You're messing with me."

She grew solemn. "No."

He fell silent, glancing over at Forte, then back at Dr. Goodall.

_What had he gotten himself into?_

* * *

The next day his boss ominously called him in for a meeting.

Much to his horror, he discovered he'd been given a temporary reassignment.

To the mernavi hospital.

He was standing there now, in the lobby, fighting his inner turmoil.

A tech glanced at him as he walked by, and Dr. Cossack recognized him as the one who'd been bitten.

"How's your hand?"

"Hmm? Oh! It hurts," the tech replied with an ironic chuckle. "But it's fine. It was shallow so I didn't need stitches."

Mikhail nodded slowly.

He was really going to have to do this, wasn't he? Because it was that, or watch as one by one every staff member in the mernavi hospital got tagged by the bloodthirsty little monster he'd brought in.

With a groan he headed for the equipment room to grab a wetsuit.

"Beachy keen!" said Dr. Goodall when she saw him shuffle reluctantly into the isolation ward.

"I'm supposed to be studying mackerel," he groused.

* * *

There was a fast turnover for most of their patients. Dr. Cossack soon discovered that cases like Forte were the exception, not the rule.

The hospital had been especially busy after the hurricane. Many beached navis, sore and tired, who just needed a day or two to recuperate before heading home. A few had injuries, but even those were mild. They were a hearty people, mernavis, and could take far more damage than organic lifeforms. They could be repaired. They bounced back quickly.

They also preferred to be treated by their own doctors, so even patients with serious injuries or illnesses were usually transferred out once they were stable.

In the weeks following the storm, the number of patients dwindled to a mere handful. It fluctuated from day to day, but was rarely ever more than ten. The only long-term patients were the few that were extremely critical, too fragile to be moved, and those with infectious diseases, who needed to be quarantined.

Before taking off, one of their volunteers allowed Dr. Goodall to demonstrate how to draw blood from a navi, and then generously let Dr. Cossack to give it a shot. He already had experience collecting samples from organic creatures, and this wasn't much different. Trying to pantomime an explanation to Forte was the hard part. He knew something was up when Dr. Cossack went in with an oxygen tank and prescription goggles. He'd flinched and hissed and glowered, but didn't pull away. Afterwards he moved to the far end of the tank and sulked.

Hours later Forte was picking at the at the silvery metal sheet epoxied to his chest.

"Leave that alone."

He glanced at Dr. Cossack, then went back to worrying the bandage.

"Don't make me come in there!" He warned. It was an empty threat, and Forte hadn't the slightest clue what he was saying.

He tracked down another doctor— short, bald, with a scraggly white beard. "Excuse me, don't we have translation devices here?"

"Ah… yes," he replied hesitantly. "I'll be honest, they're… they're not very good."

"Anything is better than nothing!"

They spent the afternoon sorting through equipment. The units were old, it seemed like half of them no longer worked, and the ones that did were clunky. They were decidedly not user-friendly. It took a few hours to figure out the settings and get it running as intended.

"How can you have a hospital _for_ navis but no means to communicate _with_ navis!?"

Dr. Cain looked surprised. "Most of our mernavi volunteers are multilingual. Normally they act as interpreters for the patients." Then he held out his hands, palms up. "We have two human employees that are fluent in some of the dominant Pacific languages… but Sal is on maternity leave and Mitch is doing an emergency relief assignment due to the hurricane."

"So, I'm just incredibly lucky."

He laughed. "Or something."

* * *

What the translation device gave them was an error.

"Must be a regional dialect. I can send this over to tech support for a software upgrade…"

Dr. Cain shrank back under Dr. Cossack's withering gaze.

"In the meantime, I'll see if we can't bring in an interpreter. You're right, this situation is untenable."

* * *

None of this went unnoticed by his associates from the commercial fishing study. Dr. Cossack started receiving daily emails with lovingly mocking image macros: poorly altered photos of his face on a shark body, a shark's head on his body, lazily sketched renditions of him as a merman, ducklings with Forte's distinctive crests and facial markings.

Almost all of them captioned with variations of phrase 'mermommy'.

* * *

As he gradually felt better, Forte quickly grew bored and became frustrated.

He talked all the time, even though no one could understand him.

"Sounds like an angry dial up modem," Dr. Cossack said, joking, as he took the code patch chips.

That earned a vacant stare from the much younger tech assisting him that day. Clearly dial up was before their time.

"Nevermind."

He also started 'pacing' the tank, and Dr. Goodall was worried it would turn into a neurosis.

So they tried to find things to keep the navi entertained. Dr. Cossack showed him videos on his phone, holding it up to the window. Dr. Goodall found an old, weathered mernavi e-reader that had some digi-books loaded on it. One of the nurses brought in metal puzzle knots.

The human videos didn't hold his attention for long. The e-reader was initially discarded in disgust— they would later learn it was packed full of sappy, cheesy romance novels— but he eventually got desperate enough to read them all. Twice. He didn't understand the puzzles at first, and tried to eat them. Once he got it, he solved them in minutes.

Dr. Cossack went out of his way to ask for help from a mernavi coworker.

"Oh! I will see what I can do to help," Gateman said. His English was impeccable, although the pronunciation was strange, and his voice had a dry metallic quality, almost like a parrot. "It will be difficult to find a navi device that works without Internet access."

"What?"

The navi looked at him oddly.

"You don't know? The isolation ward is not just a physical quarantine. That entire section of the building is shielded from navi network access. Haven't you ever wondered why you phone signal is so weak there?"

He'd noticed that, but never questioned it, assuming it was some sort of equipment interference. No wonder Forte was going stir crazy.

To maintain quarantine, then, any navi tech had to work offline, needed to be preloaded with content, and couldn't leave the isolation ward.

That turned out to be a challenge. Gateman came through, however, and was able to bring in another e-reader— this with a good variety of stories— and a P.E.T. packed with downloaded movies and videos. Some of the videos Forte showed to Dr. Cossack, holding the device up against the window.

Later Gateman proudly delivered a handheld video game system. There weren't many navi games designed for solely local play— most were interactive network games— but Forte was happy to have the few that were loaded.

* * *

Communicating with gestures and body language wasn't nearly as effective as Dr. Cossack had hoped. He was surprised how many seemingly universal signals were actually learned behavior, and not universal at all. Even something as simple as shaking your head 'no'. Mostly Forte had to learn human signals, because many of his gestures involved tail flicks and shakes, which they could understand but not repeat.

By the time the updated translation devices came back, Dr. Cossack had actually managed to pick up a few words: 'yes', 'no', whatever it was Forte called him, 'human' which was what he called everyone else, and 'die'.

'No' and 'die' apparently being Forte's favorite words. There was also a short expression he often used— always directed at the rest of the staff, never at Mikhail himself— that Dr. Cossack recognized and understood its _intent_, even if he didn't know the literal meaning. (Later, he would find out the insult translated roughly as '[I hope] squid eat your bloated corpse', because Forte certainly was a charming and poetic soul.)

Being a child with a cybernetic brain, and immersed in an English speaking land, Forte should have grasped the fundamentals of the language within a few weeks. But he steadfastly refused to learn it. It was in spite of himself that he'd inadvertently learned anything at all. 'Yes' and 'no' of course, the names of the staff who worked with him, and things like 'water', 'tank', 'code patches', 'fuel', 'stop biting me'.

He made no attempt whatsoever to speak in English.

The translation device was… quirky, to say the least. It often spit out what could only be described as word salad. The first time using it, Forte was bewildered by a simple greeting, and when he responded, the device translated it as "`My hovercraft is full of eels.`" Dr. Cain adjusted the settings, then grumbled and whacked it with his hand a few times, and this time got "`What you say.`"

Things really didn't get any better from there, and many of their conversations involved a bit of guesswork and repeating some things back and forth until they could figure out the accurate words.

And it kept translating Dr. Cossack's name as 'mola mola fish'.

* * *

The second week they'd had to tranquilize and haul him out for an exam. Although it had been explained beforehand and he'd been okay with it, the techs weren't taking any chances. At that point his score was up to six, and no one wanted to be bite victim number seven.

After peeling off the bandage and doing some scans, Forte was dragged off to surgery for more repairs.

Dr. Cossack wandered over to the lab, where his actual job was. He caught up on some emails and some reports, made small talk with his coworkers, flipped through the latest charts and data.

Then he went out onto the balcony that wrapped around the building. Hands on the railing, he stared at the ocean, gulls lazily coasting on the updraft, the white swirling peaks as the water churned, the powerful waves crashing against the rocky shore. Dr. Cossack watched silently, feeling… something… in the back of his mind.

An ache. An old familiar ache.

* * *

Luckily, Saloma agreed to come in for a couple hours a week to help.

Humans were physically incapable of pronouncing much of mernavi language. There were some pidgin versions of East Atlantic and South Atlantic, but they weren't much better than the translation devices, and a couple unusual Arctic languages could be spoken by humans and still be fairly coherent.

So instead they used a small computer tablet to type in messages, and the speakers relayed it with a text-to-speech program. She started with a fairly standard polite greeting.

Forte slowly turned over so he was looking at them upside-down, and stared at Sal the way a tiger looks at a deer. After a moment he replied.

"Oh my."

"What? What did he say?" Dr. Cossack asked.

She gave him a sideways glance. "Ah… first he said 'eat shit and die', then he offered some _very creative_ suggestions about where I can shove my P.E.T." She shook her head. "Joke's on you, fishy! Humans don't even have a cloaca."

"Ask him about his pod," Dr. Goodall said.

Sal typed furiously on the tablet. Forte made a chopping gesture with his hand, the navi sign for 'no'.

"Fine, keep your secrets." She crossed her arms, and Forte stuck his tongue out at her… because some signals were universal.

"The translation device keeps calling me 'mola mola fish'," said Dr. Cossack. "Can you figure out what he's actually saying?"

She had a sly grin, but went ahead and asked the question.

Forte started making a strange halting grinding sound, and it took a second before Dr. Cossack realized that it was laughter. The navi doubled over, and smacked the floor with his tail.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Sal chuckled as she explained: "There was a popular meme a couple years ago on the mernavi web about mola mola fish. It— well, you're experts on marine life, you can guess. The gist of it was basically a long, angry rant about how useless and stupid they are."

"Well, that's… not exactly flattering… but at least he's not calling me 'mommy'."

"Aw," she replied. "I'm sorry, I'm not explaining it right. It's a… hm, an affectionate insult. Like… you're as bad as a mola mola, but that still puts you way above the rest of humanity."

"Oh."

Sal grinned and glanced back at Forte. "Cute accent, by the way."

No one had ever called his accent 'cute', or even 'nice', so he was surprised.

"I can see why the translator had so much trouble, his pronunciation's really unique."

Then Dr. Cossack realized she was talking about Forte, not him. Given that the mernavi had different languages and dialects, it made sense that they'd also have accents.

"Where's he from, originally?"

She didn't even have to ask. "Arctic Circle, or I'll eat my bandanna." A quick check via her P.E.T., and Forte confirmed it.

"What are the odds?" Dr. Cossack said. "So am I!"

* * *

Forte was sulking towards the bottom of the tank, and Dr. Cossack didn't know what was wrong but he could tell there was something. He dragged out the translation device, but when he asked, Forte responded with a dismissive fin flip. He continued to press until he got an answer, except he couldn't make heads or tails of it. So he tracked down Dr. Goodall, explaining the best he could as they headed to the isolation ward. "I don't know, he was complaining about diodes and byproducts…?"

She laughed at him.

"Yeah, being confined and sedentary and hopped up on painkillers has the same effect on them as it does on us."

They stopped a good distance from the iso tank, and Dr. Goodall pulled an egg-sized stone out of her lab coat.

"Conglomerate rock," she explained, holding it up up between her thumb and middle finger. "Calcium limestone, feldspar clay, rich in silica, magnesium, and aluminum, some trace rare earth minerals in there, and plenty of indigestible fiber quartz."

Dr. Cossack blinked.

"…You carry a rock around in your jacket?"

Taking a few steps, Dr. Goodall drew back her arm and chucked the stone at the ceiling. It rebounded and fell into the tank.

He watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as Forte lie there, flipping through the e-reader, and casually gnawing on a _goddamn rock_. Mernavi physiology was _weird_.

"Sharks," he whispered to himself. "I just wanted to study sharks."

* * *

By week three Forte could swim up to the top of the tank, which made Dr. Cossack's life a lot easier, allowing him to stay on the catwalk that ran along the rim and across the top. He still occasionally donned a suit and got in the water, but now he could stay near the surface and catch his breath. Although he never said anything about it, Forte seemed to appreciate that a great deal.

He was pretty tactile and at times oddly clingy. It wasn't unusual for Dr. Cossack to find the end of the navi's tail coiled loosely around his ankle or forearm. Forte learned to be careful with his claws, and often placed a hand on Dr. Cossack's arm, back, or shoulder.

For weeks Dr. Cossack had been asking himself what sort of insanity had led him to agree to any of this.

Now he was reminding himself this was a _temporary_ arrangement, and that the moment Forte was well enough to go home, he'd be out of his life forever.

In other words…

Don't get too attached.

* * *

A/N: Dr. Goodall is borrowed from Mega Man Starforce. Full confession: all I know about Star Force can be summed up as "There's aliens in it?", so she's probably Dr. Goodall In Name Only, but I needed a cheerful doctor and she seemed to fit the bill. Dr. Cain and Alia from Mega Man X.


	3. Dasvidaniya

"Ahhh, nothing like waking up to the sound of shrieking robo-fish," Dr. Goodall said, a cheeky smile on her face as she greeted Dr. Cossack.

Sure enough, there was an all too familiar electric wail as he stepped into the ward.

"What's wrong?"

"Somebody just figured out they don't have access to their weapons systems."

He startled. "I'm sorry, but what? You shut it off?" Hadn't she been the one who'd gone on about patient consent?

"No, the big honkin' 'wood stake through the heart' shut it off. We just, you know, didn't fix it yet." She waved dismissively in response to his incredulous look. "You've seen this guy in action, right? Imagine if he wasn't just chomping on everyone who puts their hand too close. Imagine if he could _blow a hole right through the iso tank_. Because make no mistake, that blaster of his could tear right through those steel walls."

Truth be told, Dr. Cossack hadn't realized how powerful some of the mernavis' weaponry was.

"Is that… normal?"

"Well…" She paused. "For the bigger combat and defense types, sure. The kids aren't usually packing that much heat. Your Forte, he's, uh… he's a bruiser."

He scratched his beard and said nothing.

"His autorepair function will take care of it eventually," Dr. Goodall continued. "It just prioritizes, and right now it's focused on 'let's stay alive'. If it's not working by the time he's ready to leave, we'll fix it then."

When they reached him, Forte went from inarticulate screams to enraged ranting. Dr. Cossack scrambled to get the headset on and the translation device booted up.

"[—with not able to BELIEVE these filthy digi-barnacles take the NERVE to—]"

"Forte."

"[—moving to _gut_ them and let fed them to squid and lampreys, these stupid [_untranslatable_] seagull turds—]"

"_Forte_."

"[—then grind the bones onto a paste—]"

Dr. Cossack sighed and shook his head.

He flipped through Kalinka's latest photos on her FriendFace page, occasionally nodding or giving an 'uh-huh' as he tuned out Forte's rambling. At this point Dr. Cossack was working part-time on his 'temporary assignment' and part-time on his real job, and spending time with Forte was a mixed bag: sometimes a welcome break, other times… he got to listen to endless rambling in broken English through a glitching translation device.

* * *

"[It is badly enough this himself weak and ugly, himself also stupid and smells interesting.]"

"'Interesting'?"

Forte gestured 'no'. "['Yucky'.]"

"Who smells interesting?" asked one of the techs, carrying in a tray.

"Oh, he's been going on all morning about his friend…" Dr. Cossack double-checked the display on the translator. "Some kid named 'Pebble-person'. …wait, what does that mean?"

"[He do not friend of myself! Further, not 'Pebble-[_untranslatable_]', 'Pebble-person'!]"

Dr. Cossack sighed. "Ugh, this translation device." He adjusted the settings. "Try again."

"[Stupid device translation. Small blue stone and himself double small orange digi-barnacle.]"

There was a confused pause. "'Double'?"

"[The brother.]"

"A twin?" the tech suggested.

"[Affirmative.]" Forte then spoke slowly, as if that would possibly help. "[Small… blue… Pebble…-person.]"

With a start, Dr. Cossack remembered his confusion over Gateman's name. He'd thought it was an anomaly, until he had looked up the other mernavis at the center and found they included a Gridman and Kendoman. When he asked Sal, she had explained that it was a very old mistranslation of a common mernavi name suffix. By the time they'd sorted it out, it'd become firmly entrenched in Germanic, Romance, and Hellenic languages.

"Pebbleman?"

"[Not _pebble_.]"

"_Stone_man?"

Disgusted, Forte flicked his hand next to his head, the equivalent of a facepalm. "[Pebble.]"

"_Rock_man?"

"[It around anytime! _Affirmative!_]"

"What sort of name is 'Rockman'?" asked the tech as he handed Dr. Cossack the tray.

Eyeing it suspiciously, Forte asked, "[What this is?]"

'What this is' was syringes and vials and little collection cups for bloodwork, among other things. Dr. Cossack showed him before shoving the tools into his lab coat pockets and heading up the ladder.

"[_Noooo_,]" Forte groaned, although they didn't need the translator for that one.

* * *

On Dr. Cossack's own FriendFace page, an old college buddy posted a meme about mernavi, and his knee-jerk reaction was to laugh and upvote. Then he paused before pressing the button, and felt a small rush of anger.

Instead of lecturing the clueless friend, he showed the meme to Forte and asked what he thought. Then he had to explain it. Then he had to re-explain it, because the translation device hadn't made any sense.

Forte found it funny.

"Life would be much easier if you'd just let them give you that language download."

"[Negative, Mola Mola Fish Primary.]"

"If I'm a sunfish," Dr. Cossack asked suddenly, "then what are you?"

"[Orca.]"

He blinked in surprise. "Not a shark?"

"[Sharks are strong and cruel, prevent those not calculating, not intelligent. Myself is the orca.]"

"…I like sharks."

"[Did not say that myself did not like it.]" Then he laughed. "[Further, orcas eat sharks.]"

* * *

With the ability to travel between 80 to 120 kilometers a day, no amount of circling or going up and down the small iso tank could really offer a mernavi the exercise they need. So as Forte's strength returned, the doctors scheduled times where they'd run powerheads to create an artificial current that he could swim against. At first he could only do it for a few minutes before growing exhausted, but after a month he was doing half-hour stretches against strong jets with the stamina of a healthy navi.

Dr. Cossack asked if that meant he'd be well enough to leave soon, but the response he got was evasive. The virus was lingering and Forte still hadn't completely recovered from his injuries.

And _boy_ did Forte complain about it.

* * *

The day the translating device went on the fritz was also the day where, not long after eating and taking his medicine, Forte sank to the bottom and started clutching his chest in agony.

This time it was Dr. Cossack who was panicked and terrified. He didn't wait, he pulled off his lab coat and glasses and kicked off his shoes, raced up the ladder and dove. While he was able to swim while holding the navi, he couldn't haul him out of the tank. Thankfully it didn't take long for a couple techs to arrive, with a sling to get him safely down to the ground level.

To add to Mikhail's distress, neither Dr. Goodall nor Dr. Cain were in, and the guy who examined Forte, made a diagnosis and sent him back for another round of repairs, was someone he'd only ever seen in passing. Sure, he was probably a fine doctor and knew what he was doing, but he didn't know Forte's history inside and out the way Dr. Goodall did. He hadn't sat in front of the iso tank teaching him questionable bawdy sailor shanties like Dr. Cain had. Or found out exactly what species of cyber-crab was his favorite and special ordered them under the pretense of research study because no one was paying that much for a meal as Dr. Goodall had done.

One of the techs— the same one who'd been bit that fourth day— had to chase Dr. Cossack away to keep him from following them into the O.R.

This time, instead of sitting miserably in the lobby, or going back to the lab, he paced and paced and paced and tried not to cry. He was still dripping wet.

It was a failed valve, damaged in the accident, then left for the autorepair to take care of. Just like that, Dr. Cossack went from wishing Dr. Goodall was there to furious that she'd been so irresponsible. It wasn't like humans, where a transplanted organ or artificial replacement had its drawbacks, new parts for a mernavi were just as good as the originals.

He was so mad that he called and chewed her out.

"You don't seem to understand how extensive his injuries were," she snapped at him. "We had to replace his circulatory pump, electrolytic separator, and several major components, as well as do extensive repairs on the ballast tank."

…but then she drove in on her day off, and stayed with Dr. Cossack while he waited for Forte to wake up.

"Mikhail, you need to go get dried and change your clothes."

"Probably."

"C'mon, the kid's going to be out for at least another— what—" She checked her phone. "Twenty minutes? Go, go. I'll wait here."

He hesitated, then went to get cleaned up.

Once Forte was awake, this time it was Dr. Cossack who leaned his forehead on the window, eyes closed, one hand pressed up against the glass.

* * *

Days later and Dr. Cossack was out on the balcony, watching the ocean, thinking about the near future and how Forte would slip out of his life just like Kalinka had slipped out of his life.

And he found himself wondering what it would cost to build a pool.

* * *

Sal was back, this time with a baby harness on her chest.

At first Forte was curious, but then he proceeded to mock her infant child. While plenty of sea creatures were dependent on their mother to survive, nothing of the ocean was born helpless. He'd never seen such a thing and found it absolutely hysterical.

Thankfully she took it in stride.

What Dr. Cossack wanted to talk about was the navi's health and recovery and what had happened with the failed valve. What Forte wanted to talk about was his home. The hospital and the small tank was boring and tiresome, and evidently he was getting pretty homesick.

"Aw," said Sal.

"What?"

"He said he 'really misses the stars and the sound of rain on the surface of the water…'" She paused to listen for a moment and frowned. "Okay, less cute, but also 'the scent of seal blood when a great white eats one.' And… aw. 'The songs of humpback whales.'" Then she started typing. "This is too much, I need you to be like 20% less cute," she told him over the P.E.T.

He flicked his tail in a way that was meant to be insulting.

"'I'm not cute, you dry, crusty two-legged land-walker.'"

Forte didn't wait for her to finish translating when he started talking again.

"Oh— hang on. He wants us to try to contact someone…" She glanced at Dr. Cossack. "Can I see your phone for a sec?" Then she asked Forte for an ID code string, and texted herself the info from Mikhail's phone. "Okay. He asked if we can 'contact a navi named Serenade and ask him to check on Gospel.'"

Sal paused for a moment. Then she asked Forte if Gospel was another mernavi, only to get a noncommittal shrug in response.

"Anyway… 'you might not be able to, they're hard to find.'"

"Gospel?" asked Dr. Cossack.

"Serenade. I think."

They didn't have any success digitally tracking down either, which Forte wasn't surprised by.

What Dr. Cossack was able to do, however, was find some recordings of whale songs, and he brought in a kids toy that reflected star constellations on the ceiling, to help ease some of the homesickness. Forte made it clear that it wasn't the same… but he appreciated it anyway.

* * *

Dr. Cossack caught up with Sal before she left. "What does 'Primary' mean?"

"Oh?" She laughed. "It, um… what, is he calling you Primary now?"

"…yes…?"

Shifting her son to her hip as she prepared to put him in the baby carrier, Sal laughed again as she answered. "Well, you know, mernavis' can have multiple parents— data donors—"

"What? Er, sorry. I'm still a little confused with their whole… reproductive… process."

"And here I thought you were a biologist," she teased.

"Yes, 'BIO'logist. As in organic life."

"Well you better bone up on cybernetic life, _mermommy_. 'Primary' isn't a perfect translation, but he's basically calling you his main parent."

Dr. Cossack facepalmed. "But I'm not his _any_ parent, much less the main one! I get he's— imprinted, bonded, whatever you call it— but—"

"What about his real family?" She gave him an odd look. "Well, he didn't want to talk about it. So what do YOU think?"

* * *

Another check-up, another round of bloodwork and scans and Dr. Cain returned with the good news: Forte was clean, with no sign of any infection. He should've been happy for him, but Dr. Cossack had to hide how badly it left him reeling.

"Does this mean he'll be going home?"

"Not quite yet," said Dr. Cain. "The artificial currents helped, but he still needs to do some rehab."

He didn't hide his relief.

"So we'll be moving him into one of the community tanks."

He didn't hide his horror. "I'm not sure how well Forte will get along with other navis, in spite of what Dr. Goodall thinks."

Dr. Cain smiled as he shook his head. "Don't worry. His weapons are still down."

* * *

Truth be told, Forte _didn't_ get along very well with other mernavis. It was such a relief, however, to actually have some _space_ and room to swim… and to be able to hold a coherent conversation in Low Pacifian, with anyone other than landwalking humans… and to finally, finally have access to the mernavi web. He was smart enough to know picking a fight would land him back in the isolation ward, so he was on his best behavior. Mostly.

By and large he kept to himself, and didn't really engage the other navis in the group tank. Talking was brief and impersonal, he cursed out anyone who asked what he was in for and how he was doing, and at first he refused to join in any games or activities. One of the volunteers managed to cajole him into some friendly sparring, and another patient challenged him to a race, triggering his competitive nature. The staff had him doing daily exercises and he quickly regained strength and stamina.

One of the other patients commented on the fact that Forte was _so obviously_ imprinted on Dr. Cossack, and it resulted in a scuffle— thankfully, there were enough navis there to pry them apart and prevent things from escalating, and more importantly Forte still didn't have his blaster working. Normally that would've been enough to get him kicked out of the community tank, but he'd been there long enough for the center's staff to get attached, so instead they just split the group and moved some of the patients around.

The move also brought an end to Dr. Cossack's temporary assignment. He found himself limited to visiting before his shift, during his lunch break, and before going home for the day. So he came in as soon as the center opened and stayed late into the evening, but it wasn't the same.

It was bittersweet, though, because he could see how much happier Forte was. The way he danced and flitted about in the water, the speed and grace with which he raced from one end of the pool to the other, the excitement in his eyes when he talked about going home.

* * *

After a little over three months, they hauled Forte out onto a boat and shuttled him a good 40 kilometers out to sea.

Before leaving Dr. Goodall fixed his weaponry system and, much to his annoyance, gave him a hug… but the bite he gave her in return was purely symbolic and didn't even break the skin. Dr. Cain had said farewell the day before. Sal gave him a nice goodbye and a little pep talk, to which he'd wordlessly responded with an extraordinarily rude gesture (but in a teasing, brotherly sort of way).

Dr. Cossack took the day off and went along with him on the boat.

He'd prepared a speech. He wrote it down, went over it with Sal to make sure the translation device was accurate, re-wrote it a few times to work around the stupid glitchy translator. When they stopped and the techs helped Forte out of the boat's livewell, Dr. Cossack turned on the translator, pulled out his paper, and began pouring out his heart.

The translator was on the fritz.

He fiddled with the settings. He turned it off and back on again. He smacked the side of it.

Then, with a cry of disgust, Dr. Cossack flung it into the water.

Awkwardly Forte crawled to the side of the boat. When the techs moved to help, he shot them a glare that sent them scrambling backwards, then pulled himself up and over the edge.

"Wait!" Dr. Cossack shouted after him.

He surfaced, with his head and shoulders out of the water, watching Dr. Cossack expectantly.

"Dasvidaniya."

Forte blinked in confusion, shrugged, and then dove.

Within moments he was out of sight.

* * *

There was this hope he'd had, this crazy idea that maybe Forte would use the human web and keep in touch, or at the very least set up a FriendFace page and share pictures. Just in case, Sal helped Dr. Cossack navigate the mernavi web enough to set up his own Finstagram account, although it turned out that Forte didn't have one of those, either.

So he got through one day at a time, buried himself in his work, called Kalinka more often than he normally would've.

He spent his lunch breaks on the marine center balcony, watching the ocean and daydreaming about what Forte was up to. Had he found the elusive Serenade? Was he playing— or fighting— or whatever— with his 'definitely not a friend' Rockman and his twin brother? Was he safe? Was he happy?

Not knowing was… difficult. It left him with this feeling, somewhere in the back of his mind. An ache. An old familiar ache. The son shaped hole in his heart.

Then, after two miserable weeks, he stepped out onto the balcony with his lunch tucked under his arm and was instantly smacked in the face by a small chub mackerel.

He stood there, confused and stunned, although not nearly as confused and stunned as the mackerel.

Forte grinned at him from down in the water.

He didn't need the translator for that one.

* * *

A/N: Open to prompts for a slice-of-life fic featuring the main cast, if anyone has any suggestions.


	4. Epilogue: Sunfish Dad

Most days he stepped out onto marine center balcony to find it littered with an assortment of objects. Shells and bits of dead coral and shark teeth and interesting looking rocks and other little 'treasures'. Dr. Cossack always pocketed one or two favorites and returned the rest to the sea.

Forte often greeted him by chucking some poor animal at his head. Small fish, sea stars, octopus…

Today, a little crab. He pulled off his glasses and wiped his face with his sleeve, then scooped up the crab and tossed it back into the water.

"Aloha, Sunfish Dad."

Dr. Cossack startled. It was hard to say what was more surprising: hearing Forte speak in English, his voice strange and with a metallic reverb, or the word 'Dad'. "You got the language download?"

"Yeah. It's pretty accurate?"

"Very accurate!" He burst into laughter. "Ah, I'm so glad I never need to look at one of those stupid translation devices again!"

"You should fire them. That's what you guys do with garbage, right?"

Okay, maybe the language download wasn't _perfect_, but it was close enough.

"Hah, yes we should burn them." He smiled. "How are you doing?"

"Good. Ran into Rock, slapped his tail."

He sat down and slid his legs under the railing, letting them dangle over the edge. "Hmmm. I think something gets lost in the translation there. You fought and won?"

"Of course I won. I always win."

"You shouldn't be fighting with your friends like that."

"Ugh, that stupid data transfer error isn't my friend."

"So you've said…"

They spent a good half-hour talking about nothing in particular. How humans (other than Dr. Cossack) were weird and vaguely gross, the latest on his patrols and how he'd beat up anyone who dared moved in on his territory, the exploration he'd done in the deep ocean last week, the new mernavi entertainment he was both catching up on and looking forward to. Dr. Cossack let Forte guide the conversation wherever it took him.

* * *

Forte went to a great deal of effort to circle the topic without ever actually broaching it. With the language barrier more or less gone, Dr. Cossack finally brought it up.

"Why haven't you gone back to your family?" He asked point blank. "Did you run away?"

"'_Run_ away'? I think something gets lost in the translation," Forte teased. Then he held out his hands, palms up, a human gesture he'd picked up. "No. I'm a lone bull orca."

"What about your parents?"

"They're all dead."

"Oh… _oh!_ I'm terribly sorry." Before he could stop himself, he asked, "What happened? Is that how you got the scar?"

He shrugged. "It was a long time ago, I don't really remember."

There was a kernel of truth, but mostly he was deflecting. Dr. Cossack had better sense than to press, confident that he'd be able to follow up in the future, when the opportunity presented itself. "But…" He paused to think. "Can't you join another family? Doesn't— don't navis have resources to help— I don't know, for humans we have foster care and adoption and—"

"I don't need them and I don't need their pity. I can take care of myself." Then Forte glanced away, sinking into the water until it came up to his eyes. Hesitant, he continued, "I want to join your pod."

He shouldn't have been surprised, really.

He was anyway.

* * *

This spawned a hundred conversations that tread and retread the logistics of such a thing.

"It's not that I don't _want_ to— I mean, I already think of you like a son— it's just— I don't see how…"

Forte's suggestions were less than helpful.

'Quit your job', 'live on a boat', 'don't your human scientists have some kind of cybernetic implant that lets you breathe underwater?'

No such tech existed, and Dr. Cossack teased him in response. 'Don't your navi scientists have a way to rebuild you with robot legs so you can live on land?'

He was _so_ deeply offended by the idea that he refused to talk to Dr. Cossack for the next couple days.

* * *

"Wheeeen a fish bites your heel, but it's really an eel, that's a moray," she sang. "That's a moray!"

"Dr. Goodall?"

"When the jaws open wide, and there's more jaws inside, that's a moraaaay!"

Dr. Cossack coughed, and Dr. Goodall grinned at him. "How can I be of service, doc?"

Scratching the back of his head, he struggled to explain. "I… um… Forte asked about, er, becoming a member of my family, and I wasn't— I don't know what sort of… precedent there might be…"

"Awwwww," she said, clasping both hands over her heart. "That is the most adorable thing I've ever heard in my entire life."

He smiled… and then his face fell as she continued.

"It's a terrible idea, of course. Adorable, but it'll never work. You'll have to let him down easy, he's going to take it hard."

"But—" Dr. Cossack stammered. "But—"

"Listen, hon. Do you realize that mernavis live for hundreds of years? Some of them get damn near a thousand. You know what that means?" She jabbed her finger into the palm of her other hand. "It's like dog years, only we're the dogs. You see where I'm going with this?"

"I—"

"It takes them a buck fifty, two hundred, to reach maturity. That kid is just a kid, he's preadolescent. And when you die of old age, he'll _still_ be a kid. Sure, it gets you out of having the world's most awkward version of 'the talk' that anyone's ever had. In the big picture, though? You won't be doing him any favors."

His mouth went dry.

She was right. She _was_ right. Here he'd been concerned about the logistics of being separated by land and sea, when he should have been thinking about their disparate lifespans.

Damn it, she was right.

* * *

Forte nodded slowly, eyes fixed on nothing in the distance. "I understand. It makes sense."

Logically, he did understand, but his hand still drifted up to his chest, fingers tracing the weld marks from multiple repairs, and the heavy scar that cut across, an old reminder of past losses.

There was no way he'd ever really believe it, no matter how well he understood. In his heart of hearts, he would always think it was because he'd been weak, injured and so close to death. That Dr. Cossack turned him away because he wasn't strong enough.

Dr. Cossack felt his stomach churn, and was more conflicted than he'd been when this all started.

* * *

The little gifts and offerings stopped, because there was no longer any need to try and curry favor in a bid to join the Cossack pod.

* * *

He continued to visit Dr. Cossack often, almost every day. Forte also created a Finstagram account, although this was, perhaps, regrettable. The majority of his posts were about sea monsters he'd fought (and sometimes killed), how he'd chased creatures (including other mernavi) out of his territory, and most of his pictures were accurately captioned 'Me, coated in the blood of my enemy'.

There was one sea monster he liked, however: a large, dark, beastly looking thing that was vaguely reminisce of a nightmare walrus. This… _this_ was Gospel.

Forte treated him like a pet dog. He was very pleased to introduce the creature to Dr. Cossack, who hesitantly pet it, and tried his best to quash his growing panic.

* * *

Kalinka knew her father had rescued a navi, but didn't know many details beyond that. Dr. Cossack had felt it was better to tell her about it in person, to give her a tour of the hospital, introduce her to some of the staff… at the time, he hadn't expected Forte to stick around.

Then he spent so much time coaching Forte on how to behave around his daughter, that he failed to adequately prepare Kalinka. He found himself relating the whole story to her on the ride home from the airport. Staring at him from the back seat, her blue eyes meet his in the rear view mirror. "Like '_The Little Mernavi_'?" she asked with barely restrained excitement.

"Ummmm… well… no, not really. In fact, I would say that this is pretty much the reverse of 'The Little Mernavi'."

"Oh." She sagged for a moment, then brightened. "But there's still a mernavi."

"Yes." He explained everything— the hurricane, the tree, the hospital, the virus, the months of recovery, the bad translation devices. Kalinka listened raptly. When he was done, she grinned at him.

"So if he thinks you're his dad, then that makes him like my little brother."

Dr. Cossack blinked in surprise.

"I… I suppose so."

* * *

His biggest worry was that Forte would be jealous of his daughter and lash out, but he treated her the same way he treated everyone else. He was aloof and rude, and thankfully Kalinka followed instructions and never tried to touch him.

Everything came together when Kalinka dragged her father out to surf.

Having spent her early formative years on an island, surfing and swimming were just as natural as riding a bike or skipping rope. Dr. Cossack, on the other hand, was a strong swimmer but an abysmal surfer. He failed again and again to catch any waves, and on the rare occasions that he did, it often ended in a wipe out. Forte swam alongside them, coasting in the waves, trailing behind Kalinka as she rode one barrel after another. He fetched Dr. Cossack's board and brought it back to him, then did it again, and again and…

At one point he hung onto the surfboard, taking it out to calm waters, and spent a few minutes basking in the sun.

"Hey," said Kalinka, excited. "Could you tow me out to catch some of those really big swells?"

"Sure."

"No! It's far too dangerous," Dr. Cossack said. "Linka, you know better than that. Even professionals have been killed—"

"Oh, come on, Pa! Forte wouldn't let me drown."

He made a strange face, and glanced at the navi, wishing he had her confidence in the matter.

Forte had to think about it. _Earnestly_ think about it. After way too long of a pause, he said, "I wouldn't let her drown."

"Well, you've certainly put my mind at ease," Dr. Cossack replied sarcastically. "The answer's still 'no'," he told her.

She scowled, then gave Forte a knowing look. "When I turn eighteen— that's when us humans are adults— then he won't be able to tell me what to do anymore. We'll go then."

"When you're eighteen! That's years from now!"

But Forte just nodded.

"In six years," she said, holding out her hand, her little finger raised. "Pinkie swear."

"How?"

She used both hands to demonstrate, then reached out again. Dr. Cossack held his breath. Forte swam up and hooked his finger in hers, and she shook his hand.

* * *

It felt like her visit was over as soon as it began, always too short and never enough. Driving back from the airport, Mikhail realized the last time he felt this particular brand of heartache _wasn't_ earlier that year when he saw Kalinka off to her mother's. It was when Forte left the marine center.

With that, he realized that Dr. Goodall may have been right, but she was also dead wrong.

* * *

Staying up late into the night, he delved into the subject.

Historically, that particular sort of bond between human and mernavi was rare… but certainly not unheard of.

The most common situation was a bond of friendship, often between sailors or island-dwelling humans and coastal navi. Sometimes the result of chance meeting, sometimes a dramatic ocean rescue. More off than not a drowning human saved by a navi, but occasionally it was the other way around. A beached navi unable to get themself back to the ocean, or one that was caught up in a poachers illegal net. There was even one case where a luckless navi was losing against a cybernetic sea monster, until a deep-sea fisherman harpooned the beast, ending the battle.

Every once in a while these friendships became something more. A bond of brotherhood, where the human was invited to become a part of the mernavi's pod. Even more unusual, a love that grew in spite of two very, _very_ different concepts of romance and a physical incompatibility, again the human always joining the navi in— whatever you'd call it. (Briefly he wondered how such a 'marriage' would've been consummated, then decided he really didn't want to know.) Rarer yet, some navi had adopted orphaned human children. This was often a legal title only, since human children— dependent in a way mernavi children weren't— still needed a human guardian to watch over them.

The least likely scenario, of course, was theirs: a human adopting a navi child. It _had_ happened before, thankfully he wasn't breaking new ground here… but the number of cases were exceedingly small. There was the legend of Buratino, taken in by Mastro Japheth. The Warrior Princess Alita, of course, the daughter of Lord Edo— the real life story that Kalinka's beloved 'The Little Mernavi' was loosely (_very_ loosely) based on. In modern times was Astro, adopted by one Dr. Ochanomizu.

Given the long life that mernavis had, there was little doubt that Astro was still around, and a good chance Alita was, too. It was even possible that Buratino was alive after all these years— if he'd really existed in the first place, that was. Dr. Cossack wondered if it was possible to track any of them down online and ask them about their experiences.

Legally, the situation was… difficult. From what he could tell, things wouldn't be too bad on the navi end— their family dynamics were more open, and allowed for greater flexibility. On the human side of it, however…

He didn't let it dissuade him. Once he'd made up his mind, he knew he had no choice but to see this through, and to do it right.

* * *

The next day he download DeuxDialect into his P.E.T.

* * *

"I may have been rash. Dr. Goodall had some valid points, and maybe this is a terrible idea in the long run. But the fact remains… you're _already_ family, and it's silly not to make it official…"

Forte looked at him, frantic. "Come down to the water," he said, voice tightly wound, fists clenched. "Please. Come down here."

"I'm not dressed." Dr. Cossack meant that he wasn't wearing swim trunks or a wetsuit, and wasn't going to get wet in his button-down shirt and trousers.

"Ttt!"

With that, Forte dove. Seconds later he exploded from the water, doing an impressive leap towards the balcony, where he grabbed hold of a support beam. He then awkwardly scaled it, up to the balcony railing, wrapping his tail around the beam and hanging onto the rail.

Laughing, Dr. Cossack knelt down, and Forte reached through the bars with one arm to hug him.

"Ack, too tight."

* * *

He mindlessly tapped the small stone against his desk. The rest were lined up under his monitor, along with a handful of the paper cranes Kalinka had folded and given to him, some of the shark teeth he'd found over the years, and a couple collectible figurines.

It popped into his mind abruptly. Dr. Cossack turned the stone over in his hand, then got up and hurried over to the mernavi hospital.

"How do know what's in your pocket rocks?" He asked.

"I gotta' guy," Dr. Goodall replied.

After work she had him drive her to the pier. She texted on her phone as they walked down the dock, and then held out her hand. He gave her the stone, which she promptly dropped into the ocean.

"Hey!"

Moments later a massive mernavi with shoulder-mounted drills surfaced, scraping their teeth over the rock.

"Manganese, with nickel, cobalt, thulium," they said, casually tossing it back to Dr. Goodall. Then, without another word, they turned and dove.

"Thanks, Groundman!" It was hard to tell if the navi even heard her. She grinned as she handed it back to Dr. Cossack. "Rare earth metal, looks like it's a good vein of it, too." Then, she added slyly, "You were thinkin' of putting a pool in the backyard, yeah?"

He stood there stunned, as many things raced through his mind.

The main one being, naturally, just how many rocks Forte had given him that he'd tossed back into the water.

* * *

As usual, it was the one thing he hadn't anticipated that caused the most trouble.

The paperwork was a nightmare, and he felt like he was endlessly throwing money into legal fees and processes and lawyers. No one seemed to take him seriously. In the end, those were merely hurdles, nuisances and delays.

It was his ex-wife who nearly brought the whole thing to a grinding halt.

"She's concerned there's a danger to Kalinka," Dr. Cossack said miserably, burying his head in his hands. "I hardly get to see her enough as it is, and now— I— I could lose everything…"

"I'm terribly sorry about all of this. But… I don't understand why you're telling me," Gateman replied.

He looked up. "I don't know how to tell Forte, and I kept thinking maybe— maybe if it came from another navi—"

"And get the business end of his blaster? I'm sorry, Dr. Cossack, but… no. No."

"Oh, no, I… actually, I was thinking about one of his friends, but don't know how to contact them." He dug around in his pockets and pulled out his phone. "I have Serenade's ID code string. They live in the deep sea." He stuffed the phone back into his pocket. "Or there's some kid named Rockman, I don't have his ID code, but I know he has a brother named Netto and is a part of the Hikari pod."

At first Gateman flicked his hand next to his head in exasperation, but then he sighed. "Okay, fine. I'll see what I can do."

* * *

In the meantime he told everyone and anyone about his dilemma.

"All those techs and nurses he bit…" Dr. Cossack said, groaning and shaking his head.

"Don't sweat it," Dr. Goodall replied. "That's all confidential patient records." She steepled her fingers dramatically. "No one ever has to know."

Dr. Cain offered to be an expert witness, and he tried to explain that Family Court doesn't work like that. Ultimately, Dr. Cain wrote a glowing— if not _completely dishonest_— recommendation / referral / testimony.

And Mikhail scheduled time off and booked a plane ticket.

* * *

"Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to show up."

Forte huffed a burst of water from his cooling vents and flipped his tail dismissively. "What are you doing way up here?"

Ignoring the rude behavior, Serenade caught up and swam by his side, all the while keeping their gaze fixed straight ahead, a smile playing at the corner of their lips.

"You're welcome, by the way. For taking care of Gospel."

"Whatever. I don't know why that dumb mutt likes you."

"So, care to tell me what happened? You went silent and then he shows up, one could only assume the worst." Serenade asked, and their eyes briefly swept over Forte, focusing for a split-second on the still healing weld marks. "And yet, here you are."

"What makes you think something happened?" He sneered, annoyed that his coldness slid off them like water off a duck's back. It took a great deal to make a crack in Serenade's composure and Forte rarely managed it. "I come and go as I please, and I don't answer to you. Mind your own business."

"Ah, so something DID happen. Got it."

"Nothing—! Ugh. What part of 'mind your own business' do you not understand?"

"Whatever you say," Serenade replied, trying not to smirk.

He huffed again, bubbles cascading in tiny froths from his vents, and sped up a little, just enough to leave them lagging behind.

"Forte."

"What now?"

"I have a message about your human friend."

He stopped and spun around, glaring. "I don't _have_ any human friends—"

"There's no need to pretend, I understand the situation better than you know."

"Why, because you like hanging out with crusty land-walkers? Don't think you know anything about me, Serenade."

"The Urakawa's are my family."

Forte was stunned into silence, and Serenade continued.

"As for your friend, he has a problem. His child's primary parent has threatened to keep her away from him, should you join his pod." With that, they reached out, placing a hand on his forearm. "I'm sorry. It's not something that can be solved with blaster or fangs. Your—"

Expression unreadable, Forte jerked away, then turned and sped off.

Prudently, Serenade did not try to follow.

* * *

In a perfect world, the judge would've thrown out the case and given Mikhail full custody and Kalinka would've moved back with him, visiting her mother only a few months out of the year, and he'd officially adopt Forte and they'd be one big happy family.

It wasn't a perfect world, but sometimes it was a practical one. In this case, the judge did dismiss it as species-discriminatory and the custody situation went unchanged.

He got back home emotionally drained and completely strung out.

With everything that'd been going on, Dr. Cossack missed the fact that Forte hadn't tried to contact him and stopped updating his social media.

* * *

Serenade was right, violence wasn't going to solve this. But _it sure made him feel better_.

Forte had managed to do a pretty good job of forgetting his troubles by way of battle and bloodshed when Rockman— of all people— decided to show up.

Nosy little punk…

His shots were devastating but sloppy, he was still furious and emotionally raw and had been brute-forcing his was through the last few fights. (Who needed finesse when you could just overpower your enemies?) Rockman easily dodged them, twisting and darting through the water with grace and speed.

"Hey! Would you please quit shooting at me?"

"Yeah, sure. Just after I've landed a few."

He groaned. "Come on, don't be so mean. Dr. Cossack is looking for you."

For a moment Forte's rage swelled inside him. "You keep that name out of your mouth!" But then it struck him— how in the seven seas did Rock even know about Dr. Cossack? Confusion dampened the anger. "Wait, how— what?"

Shaking his head, Rockman reached out and grabbed Forte by the arm, then started towing him along. Forte was so bewildered that for a moment he let him. Then he wrenched free and silently followed.

Netto joined them on the way, having stayed back to avoid Forte's wrath. The Hikari brothers chatted the whole time, filling the space with light conversation about video games and sea monsters they'd fought and what the latest was with Roll's human friend. It was obvious that they were both _dying_ to ask Forte about what was going on, but they stayed strong and avoided the topic, and he wasn't about to volunteer anything. In fact, he was so apprehensive— he could guess why Dr. Cossack would send Rockman to find him, but what if he was wrong?— and completely thrown off-kilter, that he just quietly went along.

It took them half the day to get all the way back to the island and the marine center. Having received a message from Rockman, Gateman was waiting outside, letting them in through the underwater mernavi employees' entrance.

Dr. Cossack was by the connecting pool, the 'foyer' for navi coming into the hospital. Forte hung back, watching him uneasily, while Rockman and Netto hopped onto the ledge.

"Ah, this must be the infamous Pebble-person."

"Huh?"

Smiling, he offered a hand, but Rockman didn't know how to respond. "Oh, I've seen this before!" Netto said, then reached out and shook Dr. Cossack's hand. "Hi. I'm Netto, and this is my twin brother Saito." Rockman followed suit.

"'Saito'? I have to say, I'm a little disappointed, you don't smell interesting—"

"_Shhhhuuu_—" Forte started, then abruptly cut off. He sank down in the water slightly, both embarrassed and wanting Dr. Cossack to stop, but also not wanting to be rude to him, which went against every instinct. "Uh— quit… quit it."

"We had some problems with the center's translation devices," Dr. Cossack explained. He looked over at Forte. "Are you going to stay down there?"

"Maybe."

Both Netto and Rockman glanced from Dr. Cossack to Forte and back, then Rockman grabbed his brother and jumped into the water. "We'll be right back." With that, he hauled the protesting Netto through the entrance and out of sight.

Tentatively Forte swam over to the edge. "What happened with— with—"

"With Kalinka?" He got down on one knee. "I should've waited. I should've talked to you about it in person, and… well, I should've waited. Everything's fine, her mother was worried you might hurt her, but the judge decided it was discriminatory—"

"Don't… ugh. What makes you think I wouldn't?"

"Honestly? I was a little afraid you might, at first… but I don't think you would, because you know how much it would hurt me."

"Hmmm."

"So, nothing's changed, and it appears I stirred up a whole lot of trouble over nothing. You're probably not very happy with me right now."

"Kind of," he admitted, then pulled himself out of the water. Dr. Cossack drew him into an embrace, and after a moment, the need for affection overcame the anxiety and Forte hugged him back.

"Ah, still too tight…"

Letting go, he slipped back into the pool before Rockman and Netto came back and saw him in such a compromising position. It was good timing, because they returned moments later. As much as Rock respected other's privacy, curiosity won out in the end.

"How do you two know each other?" asked Netto.

Before there was a chance to answer, Rockman followed with questions of his own. "What happened, anyway? He wouldn't tell us anything."

"It's got to do with why he disappeared, right?"

"How'd you know about me? Does that mean Forte talked about us?"

"Oh! Was he here this whole time?"

"That makes sense," Rockman said.

"Yeah, yeah, that does," Netto agreed. "Are you one of the doctors here?"

"What'd he say about me?"

"My," Dr. Cossack replied, overwhelmed but amused.

"Leave him alone, jellyfish-brains," said Forte. "Losers. Go home already."

"If Forte wasn't comfortable talking about it, then I'm afraid it's not my place to say," Dr. Cossack replied politely.

Forte was again conflicted, because he was relieved that Dr. Cossack didn't tell them his business, but he was also a little insulted by the implication that he was too embarrassed to talk about it— never mind that he was, in fact, too embarrassed to talk about.

"And yes, I do work at the center, but not in the hospital. I study fish migration."

This earned a sour look from both of the brothers. "Yech, fish migration."

"Mommy made us study— wait, is that the right word? 'Mommy'?"

"She made us study fish migration, said it was an important part of a well-rounded education."

"But it wasn't useful at all. Just really boring!"

Dr. Cossack chuckled. "It _is_ pretty boring," he agreed. "Would you boys like a tour of the facility?"

For a brief, shining moment Forte thought he was off the hook… then his face fell. Dr. Cossack would keep his secrets. The nurses and techs, on the other hand? Or worse, Dr. Goodall? 'Anecdotes' would be shared, secrets revealed, his reputation ruined. He'd have no choice but to murder everyone, blow up the marine center, get some illegal signal scrambling tech from Serenade, and move to the Atlantic.

"No. No, they were just getting ready to leave."

"Yes!" said Rock and Netto simultaneously.

Things went downhill almost instantly. The first tech Dr. Cossack introduced them to responded with:

"Oh! _Pebble-person!_"

Which caused Rockman to ask again what Forte had said about him.

"He mentioned you a few times," Dr. Cossack admitted. "The words were less than kind, but he seems to think very highly of you—"

"No, I don't, he and his equally stupid brother are the worst—"

"To be honest, I suspect he may be a little jealous."

"Absolutely not! Never! Are you out of your mind?"

His angry protests were interrupted when Dr. Goodall rounded the corner. "Well, if isn't Sunfish and fish son!"

"_Ugh_."

The rest of the visit continued that way. It was horrific and frustrating and terrible and humiliating and maybe, possibly, kind-of sort-of almost a little bit wonderful.

* * *

It would take nearly a year and a half, plus a fair amount of rare earth metal rich manganese stones, not to mention a couple ulcers, to get all the paperwork through.

He left contractors flummoxed when he asked about installing a pool— with an underground access tunnel. "It's for my son," Dr. Cossack would explain as he pulled up pictures on his phone, eager to share just as any proud parent would.

(Although his house was by the shore, unfortunately it wasn't in the right location for that kind of set up. Figuring out a work around would prove to be a challenge, and on more than one occasion Mikhail found himself carrying Forte on his back. He did, however, continue resisting Forte's petition that he just live full time on a boat.)

He still went beachcombing after storms, returning starfish and horseshoe crabs to the water, collecting beautiful pieces of driftwood. Thankfully he never found anything as interesting as another mernavi, Forte managed to add more than enough weirdness and excitement to his life as it was.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, be sure to check out "A Drop in the Ocean", a series of short stories about the whole mernavi shoal.


End file.
